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History deserted and left to rot

One of the cities oldest houses, on George St., has been left to rot over the past decades.

This vacant home on George St. was found ablaze Wednesday night. It was built in the 1850s and was once under the care of one of the city's richest families.
(Google streetview)

By Chantaie AllickStaff Reporter

Thu., Oct. 20, 2011

A property once owned by one of the richest families in the city has gradually been abandoned, left to rot, and now burned.

In the middle of the 19th century, the area bounded by Queen, Bloor, Jarvis and Sherbourne Sts. was a prime piece of real estate owned by the Allan family, which donated the horticultural park now known as Allan Gardens.

In 1853, George Allan began subdividing the area for residential uses after his father’s death. Pembroke St., one block west of George, became one of the city’s finest residential streets.

The house that caught fire Wednesday night at 295 George St. was among those built at that time and is one of the oldest remaining in the city. But the house’s fortunes faded as the area became less fashionable in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when wealthy Torontonians flocked to Rosedale and other new neighbourhoods.

295 George St. switched hands often before being bought in 1884 by William Gooderham Jr., a philanthropist and son of the family that established the distilling complex now known as the Distillery District. He purchased it for J.W.C. Fegan, an Englishman who established the Fegan Boys Distributing Home to bring destitute young boys over from Britain and set them up to work in homes out west.

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It was owned by the boys’ home until 1939, when it became a home for disabled residents. For a while it served as a warehouse for Interalia Co. Ltd. It was sold in 2000 and again in 2005 to a numbered company registered as 1654028 Ontario Ltd.

It now sits empty, exposed to the elements after the roof was removed for renovations in the mid-2000s.

The heritage structure was simply left to disintegrate, said Eva Curlanis-Bart, president of the Garden District Residents Association.

The street has “undergone tremendous transformation for the worst” in recent years, she said, frequented by prostitutes, homeless people and drug dealers and users — a disincentive to maintain properties or attract tenants.

Eleanor McGrath, a local writer and filmmaker, became interested in the house a year and a half ago while doing research for her film on the history of Irish immigrants in the city.

Walking by two days ago, she noticed new fencing around the house. She contacted Heritage Preservation Services when she got home and asked that they start the process of getting the house designated as a heritage site.

The next day it went up in flames.

“I’m still in shock,” she said of the timing.

She says the city needs to work harder to preserve its heritage buildings, listing several houses demolished in recent years. “If we keep letting condo developers do all the things they want, what are we going to look at in the city?”

Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam was at a meeting with the owner of the property, discussing community revitalization for the neighbourhood, when news of the fire spread.

Wong-Tam said there’s an accumulation of reasons why many properties on the street have been abandoned. One often cited is the presence of Seaton House shelter at 339 George St. Built in the late 1950s, the shelter for homeless men has more than 500 beds.

“That, compounded with the fact that there are other types of rooming houses on that specific street, I think created an atmosphere where they started to see their property values fall,” Wong-Tam explained. A designated heritage house at 305 George was a rooming house for years before being left vacant.

Wong-Tam had been meeting with the property owners to find a way to repurpose the buildings and land and rebuild the street. “I don’t recall ever seeing that street wholly populated,” she said.

The house at 295 George, along with a parcel of other buildings, has been up for sale for the past month. The asking price: $8.9 million.

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